# Examples of false friends in different languages, including Brit/US English? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2013, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162 "2013-03-17T11:22:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/121 "2013-03-20T06:35:30Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’ve read that people say (or said ca. 1904) “do you have any Gaelic on you” to mean “do you speak Gaelic.” Without the “on you”, but I’ve heard translators use the expression “have [a language]” a lot. If someone claims to have a language, the next question is to what degree: can you get the gist, translate from it, translate into it? After having written “in Spanish” rather than my customary “in Spain” in the previous post, I remembered having heard _aguas frescas_ with the meaning of “cold water and juice” in Monterrey. Me bad. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/122 "2013-03-20T11:15:49Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Without the “on you”, but I’ve heard translators use the expression “have [a language]” a lot. If someone claims to have a language, the next question is to what degree: can you get the gist, translate from it, translate into it? Also, I’m sure that some Spanish speakers learning English mistakenly say “Do you dominate [whatever language]?” – Spanish ‘dominar’ can mean “speak fluently” (a meaning somewhat similar to, but more broadly used than, the English verb ‘to master’.) ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/123 "2013-03-20T14:09:02Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Also, I’m sure that some Spanish speakers learning English mistakenly say “Do you dominate [whatever language]?” – Spanish ‘dominar’ can mean “speak fluently” (a meaning somewhat similar to, but more broadly used than, the English verb ‘to master’.) Slight hijack (since not related to inter-lingual mixups) but in slightly outdated Hebrew, one might ask “do you \*hear \*(language)?” – meaning “do you understand (language)?” \* To which my answer would usually be – “I can \*\*hear \*\*it just fine; but I don’t understand a thing!” - As distinct from actually speaking it, I guess? This is really old-school pre-independence Hebrew, so I generally heard it only from people now in their 70’s and 80’s. Haven’t heard it in years. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/124 "2013-03-20T15:15:54Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’ve read that people say (or said ca. 1904) “do you have any Gaelic on you” to mean “do you speak Gaelic.” > > BTW, not challenging your statement, but I’m stunned to read that in the 1980s, many people in Ireland had no home service (even more than a handful would surprise me). I was a student in the 90s, and it was a big deal if your shitty student flat had a landline of its own, rather than a shared payphone in the hall. There might still be people who say ‘Have you any Gaelic on you?’ but I’d expect them to be older and from an Irish-speaking background, with English as a second language. That construction is a direct translation of the Irish structure: ‘An bhfuil Gaeilge ort?’ or ‘Is there Irish on you?’ The same construction is used for hunger - there’s no such word as ‘hungry’; instead of saying ‘I am hungry’ you say ‘Tá ocras orm,’ or ‘There’s a hunger on me’ - and for fear and a bunch of other stuff. ETA: Also, no one Irish calls the language ‘Gaelic’. We call it Irish. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/125 "2013-03-20T15:22:58Z")
Sorry for the double post, but the German ‘Handy’ thing reminded me of another Italian one: the word for jogging is, for some unfathomable reason, ‘footing’. Pronounced to rhyme with ‘hooting’. An English-speaker could easily assume that meant walking, say. I truly don’t get this one. Why borrow a word from another language and, instead of borrowing the actual word, just shoehorn in a semi-relevant one? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/126 "2013-03-20T15:36:51Z")
eclectic wench, plenty of native speakers from Donegal and its islands call it Gaelic even in English but yeah you’re generally right about it being referred to as Irish. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/127 "2013-03-20T16:41:50Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > There might still be people who say ‘Have you any Gaelic on you?’ but I’d expect them to be older and from an Irish-speaking background, with English as a second language. That construction is a direct translation of the Irish structure: ‘An bhfuil Gaeilge ort?’ or ‘Is there Irish on you?’ The same construction is used for hunger - there’s no such word as ‘hungry’; instead of saying ‘I am hungry’ you say ‘Tá ocras orm,’ or ‘There’s a hunger on me’ - and for fear and a bunch of other stuff. I used to get tripped up by “I’m after having my dinner”. I thought they meant they were looking for a restaurant when they meant they had just _had_ their dinner. I never learned Irish, but I think this is another construction that comes from Irish. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/128 "2013-03-20T16:45:51Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > One between Spanish and Italian which is famous enough that nowadays it trips relatively few people: _burro_ is donkey in Spanish, butter or lard in Italian. True. Funnily here in the Veneto you get “baccalà mantecato”, which is dried cod whipped with butter (and maybe some cream) - so the dialect word is more Spanish. It’s delicious. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/129 "2013-03-20T17:11:17Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > Sorry for the double post, but the German ‘Handy’ thing reminded me of another Italian one: the word for jogging is, for some unfathomable reason, ‘footing’. Pronounced to rhyme with ‘hooting’. An English-speaker could easily assume that meant walking, say. > > I truly don’t get this one. Why borrow a word from another language and, instead of borrowing the actual word, just shoehorn in a semi-relevant one? But it’s not borrowed, it’s invented following the patterns of a fashionable foreign language to sound cooler, a fake Anglicism. It’s called footing in Spain and France too, don’t ask me where was it used first. Baccalà mantecato does sound guiltily delicious. And hey, fish is good for you, right? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/130 "2013-03-21T03:20:45Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > German has some false friends - “Gift” is German for “poison” and “Mist” is German for “manure”. On the other hand, the German verb “to travel” is “fahren” (analogous to the English word “to fare” hence “farewell”); a common form of the verb though is “fahrt” which is pronounced just about the way you’d think it was (and the noun form “Fahrt” is the word for vehicle, so you see the word a lot in Germany) And in German “die” means “the,” doesn’t it? That’s a pretty false friend there! ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/131 "2013-03-21T04:51:13Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > "[pissed =] angry in the USA, drunk in the UK (although “pissed off” means angry, annoyed, resentful in the UK). > > Oh and: > “Fag” (USA): slang/slur term for a male homosexual > “Fag” (UK): cigarette \*\* “I was _so_ pissed, I started sucking on a fag… even though I’d given them up for lent.”\*\* How does it work to use both senses of “fags” in canada? Do you spend a lot of time pantomiming smoking a cigarette so no one gets the wrong idea? (And frantically pantomiming as the eyebrows are going up and you realize they think you’re pantomiming a blowjob…) ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/132 "2013-03-21T05:16:39Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I knew “metsitsa” was either a separation or blowjob in Hebrew, but was surprised that it was “hard candy” in Jerusalem.\* Um, separation/partition is “mechitza”. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/133 "2013-03-21T09:52:57Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > … (and the noun form “Fahrt” is the word for vehicle, so you see the word a lot in Germany) _Fahrt_ means trip or travel. A vehicle is _Fahrzeug_. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/134 "2013-03-21T22:48:39Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > _Fahrt_ means trip or travel. A vehicle is _Fahrzeug_. You’re right - I messed up. “Fahrt” turns up in compound words, like “Ausfahrt” (exit), “Bahnfahrt” (train journey), and somehow I got the idea that it also turned up in compound words describing vehicles. One British English phrasing that seems unusual to Americans (at least to me), is “Way Out” for “Exit.” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/135 "2013-03-22T00:30:50Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > One British English phrasing that seems unusual to Americans (at least to me), is “Way Out” for “Exit.” British exits are really amazing, man! ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/136 "2013-03-22T00:41:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > British exits are really amazing, man! It made perfect sense to see a “Way Out” sign in the last episode of “The Prisoner.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/137 "2013-03-22T00:46:24Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > And in German “die” means “the,” doesn’t it? That’s a pretty false friend there! Only in writing, though. The German article “die” is pronounced “dee”. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/138 "2013-03-22T01:10:25Z")
About Brit “quite.” (Above, but no pull cites.) Which was answered by “indeed.” Which, I, feeling witty also, answered with “what?” No one picked me up on that, so this time I’ll put this consummately Brit language thing in all its glory. It is as foreign to me as the Queen: “Interesting thread, what what?” Does _anybody_ still say this? I’ve seen it only in PG Wodehouse, who is both a writer who doesn’t hold back satire, and many of whose stories are set in the early 1930s. And maybe some Monty Python. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/139 "2013-03-22T05:43:43Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > It still means “currently” in English too! > > [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/actual): 2. existing now; present; current: The ship’s actual position is 22 miles due east of Miami. Hmmm…but this sounds more like navigational jargon. In everyday usage I can’t think of a context where it doesn’t mean “true”, or “real” or “not false”. The “actual news of the day”, if anyone actually–Hah! A little joke.–said it, could only mean the genuine or true news in contrast to news stories that were fabricated or embellished. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162/140 "2013-03-22T05:45:31Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > “Interesting thread, what what?” > > Does _anybody_ still say this? I’ve seen it only in PG Wodehouse, who is both a writer who doesn’t hold back satire, and many of whose stories are set in the early 1930s. And maybe some Monty Python. No, I never heard anyone say it in real life, except as a joke. Not only is it very dated, it also seems to have been an exclusively upper class thing. It isn’t a Wodehouse invention though, Dorothy L. Sayers’ aristocratic detective character, Lord Peter Wimsey says it too. Wimsey, however, belongs to roughly the same period and social class as Bertie Wooster (Wimsey is an actual lord, Bertie is nephew to one). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-false-friends-in-different-languages-including-brit-us-english/653162.md?page=8)